12/26/12

A New Room...and a New Ring!

If you follow me on Facebook, you may have seen my post about painting my dining room ceiling a few weeks ago. When I originally painted my dining room mocha brown, I left the tray ceiling the existing tan color. It was my intention to do a funky treatment on the tray ceiling, but the weeks turned into months, which turned into 2 years of the ceiling not being painted. What can I say, life is blissfully busy.

This is what we started with-

Since it was going to be much easier to take down the chandelier before painting the ceiling, I decided it was time for a new chandelier as well. I have always loved my capiz chandelier from West Elm, but it just didn't fit in the large room. I couldn't bear to part with it, so we simply moved it to a much better suited spot.

*Charlie's face is too funny in this pic. This also reminds how desperately I need to make new valances!

I picked up this metallic paint from the Martha Stewart line at Home Depot. I had used Ralph Lauren metallic paint in an accent wall in my master bedroom in my first home and knew it was a challenging finish of paint to work with. However, the Martha Stewart brand was a nightmare. We even bought the recommended Martha Stewart-brand paint roller made for textured/metallic paint. Unfortunately, the 'bronze' paint was super streaky and looked like chocolate syrup. Not good. Sadly, I don't have any photos of this stage, as I was too disgusted to stop and grab the camera:(

I headed back to Home Depot and picked up a few smaller jars of the textured metallic glazes to help camouflage the streaky finish.

After trying out several different techniques, we found one that gave us the finish we were after. I had the gold color, Muscovado and Justin used the light bronze color, Medallion. I would swirl the gold paint in figure-8 movements, and he would quickly lightly go over the same area with his bronze glaze. This created a beautiful, multidimensional finish that we LOVE.

You may have noticed our new light fixture in the after photos above. I took a gamble and ordered this chandelier from Amazon. Luckily, it was exactly what I had been envisioning but couldn't find in any local shops.

We think the room looks so much more warm and rich now. We even got to host Christmas Eve dinner in our 'new' dining room this year to rave reviews.

Now on to a personal update...Justin and I got engaged!

We were at home Saturday cleaning house and wrapping presents. As we finished up and started getting ready to go out to dinner, Justin told me he had a new favorite ornament. Every year, we purchase or make a new ornament for our Christmas tree. I have been so busy the past few weeks, that I hadn't had a chance to go pick out an ornament. I headed over to the tree to see what he had gotten. I then saw a sweet heart-shaped ornament...with a beautiful diamond ring tied to it. He pulled the ring off, got down on one knee and proposed!

As I fought back tears, I said yes! Of course! He then let me know that he had made dinner reservations at 2 places and I could pick whichever one I wanted. One was for Room 39 where we had our first date, and the other at Blue Stem, where we have never been but have wanted to go to for ages. I opted for Blue Stem We quickly called our loved ones to share the happy news and then headed out. We had an amazing five course dinner...I am still full!!! Justin and I love hanging out at home, and it felt so special to be at home with our dogs in front of the Christmas tree that we put up together to start our new life together.

The next morning we headed to Justin's parents to celebrate Christmas and were greeted with mimosas and well wishes! It was a wonderful start to the holiday and our new life together.

Although it's a tad belated, Merry Christmas from our family to yours!

What a wonderful proposal! Congratulations! Your dining room looks great. I wonder if you might share the dimensions of your room and table. I'm trying to figure out a good size table for my dining room and it looks about the same as yours.

Hi Rachel! Sorry for the delay. Our dining room measures 12.5 x 11 and our table (with the leaf in, as shown)is 81 inches long. Our table is from the Madison collection at Crate&Barrel. I'm not sure if they still make this line or not, but hopefully the size helps you at least.